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When things don’t happen the way we hope
And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus. –Philippians 4:19
It’s not a stretch to say that most people have hopes and dreams for this life. I don’t personally know anyone who wants to live a bad life! I’ve never seen an advertisement for a seminar called “How to Have a Lousy Life.” Still, for many Christ-followers, life doesn’t turn out the way they had hoped. Perhaps you have experienced the disappointment of dreams and goals that have gone unfulfilled. Life’s reality(both good and bad) breaks through the front door of our lives–as an uninvited guest–and then must be dealt with as a close companion. Often, we have no choice of the things that come our way.
My own plans did not include dealing with illness, auto-immune disorders, and multiple family health issues with three generations at the same time. Disappointment at this new reality of life hit me hard. Now, years later, although my life has regained a sense of balance, I live with the knowledge that this life on earth may not look the way I envisioned it in my 20’s.
I am on the journey of being a Christ-follower and the journey includes all of our life experiences–both good and bad. While we can’t have everything that we want, we can trust that God provides for what we need. God is in the business of providing opportunities for us to grow in faith daily. And, it seems that very often these opportunities take the form of struggles and trials.
Painful life experiences may not be enjoyable, but they can be worthwhile, if in the midst of them, we allow ourselves to be molded into the likeness of Jesus. We are responsible to choose our response to trials. A time of trial often forces a decision to be made and our responses, like facing forks in the road, determine which roads we take. One road leads to despair and the other road leads to hope and developing our relationship with Christ. We may not understand why things are happening the way they are, but we can choose to trust God anyway.
Blessings,
Thora
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Thank you for this slice of wisdom, just this morning I have been praying for the words to speak to my sister that is going through a life changing trial, and God has answered through your writing
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I also have an auto immune disorder that has completely changed my life, but for His grace he has brought me closer to Him. and because of my disorder I have great difficulty word-finding, Thank you for the words I needed to send to my sister!
Thanks for the important reminder to focus on God and not unpleasant circumstances. He is faithful and has our best interests at heart even when we can’t see it.
Whenever I feel like life is not going my way and that my dreams are not being fulfilled I count my blessing. I sit down and tell God everything I am grateful for, every little thing. No my life has not been the best life and that’s ok but I will take what happened to me and use it to help others because my God is a awesome God and he knows what he is doing. I may not know but I trust him.
I have read this many times, sent it to a friend, & will keep it in my mail for a while. Parts of it hit on different chords in my heart, “…although my life has regained a sense of balance, I live with the knowledge that life on earth may not look the way I envisioned it in my 20’s.”, “allow ourselves to be molded into the likeness of Jesus”, “we can choose to trust God anyway”, are a few that resonate deeply. This is not the message we are used to hearing & can really hurt, but faithful God brings understanding, meaning & healing. He refines our faith which is more precious than gold.
I appreciate how you’re so open and honest about your own trials. It encourages me. I’ve had / have a wacky autoimmune disease, too, but it seems to have gone underground for awhile…such a mysterious thing. And boy, do I relate to everything happening at once!! So weird how that happens…those are times you have to call in the “reserves”….HELP!! I remember one time in my life I had to “prioritize” the two family medical crises happening at the same time. Definitely an unusual challenge. The sandwich generation, too…means the filling gets smushed sometimes. We need to keep building those spiritual muscles and bones.
Oh, Thora, this is truly a heartfelt post! And you’re right. We can CHOOSE to trust God. But I think it’s a lot easier to do that when we get to know Him and how good he really is. Thank you for sharing from your heart.